Q1 Update
Hello, everyone! Happy New Year!
Fourth quarter was a wild ride, and I’m super excited for 2024! I have three books that I expect to publish this year, and I can’t wait to share them with you all! But first let’s take a look at what got done — and what didn’t — over the holiday season.
Writing
NaNoWriMo — National Novel Writing Month — takes place every November, and I made it my goal to finish the short stories for Colors of Magic. That means that I successfully drafted the remaining six short stories! I’ve gotten some great feedback on these, and I am very excited to share them with you all later this year!
And having finished those, that opens up returning to the draft of Blades Reforged, the third and final installment in the Blades of the Goddess series. Currently, it is about a quarter drafted, with my goal being to finish the first draft by the end of February.
Edits
Broken Blades concluded editing and has been finished! I am excited to share it with you all on January 12, and I’m just starting to get ARC reviews in!
Of the short stories for Colors of Magic, about half of them have gone through edits, with the plan being to finish developmental edits by the end of January. Copy edits and proofreading has been scheduled for later this year, and it will release May 12, 2024!!
I also spent a large portion of December editing the first few chapters of Blades Reforged to bring them more in line with certain terminology and events from the other books.
The audiobook had to be pushed back significantly for Lost Blades, unfortunately. Production has begun, though, and I expect to release it in the first quarter of 2024.
Other
I went to a number of in-person shows and events for the holiday season! The Scituate Art Festival and the Rhode Island Author Expo were the largest of these, and both were a ton of fun! I’m already looking at a number of other events for this year — stay tuned for announcements as I receive confirmations!
Lost Blades also launched on Campfire, a website that allows authors to package worldbuilding in with their books for a fun, interactive reading experience! You can read my blog post here to learn more about it. There are three exclusive short stories you can only read on Campfire as part of the complete package for Lost Blades, as well as a ton of art and other worldbuilding information.
Speaking of, I’ve been working on a ton of art for the Blades series, especially chibis for the preorder bonuses for the remaining books but also some for Campfire. Designs for bookmarks and other bonuses will also be released soon!
Lost Blades also received a nomination for the Indie Ink Award for Best Setting, which is amazing! I can’t possibly express how much I appreciate everyone’s support!
Preorder News / Looking Forward
That leads us to what will be happening coming up:
On January 12, when Broken Blades releases, Colors of Magic and Blades Reforged will both go on preorder.
Colors of Magic
Colors will be released on May 12, 2024. It will not have an audiobook available to preorder — as a collection of short stories, I’m planning to push the audio release to a later date, possibly early 2025. However, subscribers to my newsletter will be able to vote on a short story they would like to receive access to early. I intend to hold the vote in March and send out the short story to them in April, a month before the release of the anthology :)
If you preorder a physical book (either hardcover or paperback) through my website, there will be physical preorder bonuses:
A bookmark
Nine 2.5” character stickers
There will also be some digital preorder bonuses, available for anyone who preorders Colors:
Digital wallpapers for your phone and desktop
A PDF of the glossary
A Hi-res image of the timeline of Gaia
Blades Reforged
Reforged will be released on September 12, 2024, and will be available in all formats. It will also come with a selection of preorder bonuses.
For physical books bought from my website, there will be:
A bookmark of your choice (either purple or white)
A set of four 2.5” character stickers
Digital preorder bonuses will include:
A digital download of the first four chapters of Blades Reforged (available to download in May)
Hi-res maps
Digital wallpapers for your phone and desktop
A digital pdf of a recipe book of some of the foods our characters have enjoyed from the series
A PDF of the glossary
More information on preorder bonuses for both books will become available as we move forward.
Looking Forward
So… that means the Blades of the Goddess saga will conclude in September of this year. What happens then?
Don’t worry, I won’t be going anywhere — and neither will the world of Gaia. I have plans for many series set in this world, some following characters we know and some following new characters, that will keep me writing for years to come. For now, I’ll leave you with this little crumb of what I intend to write following the Blades books by its working title:
[Redacted] and the pirates duology.
Aaand that’s where I’ll leave you for this update. Here’s to 2024 — I hope it’s a great year for everyone!!!
